A. Manejo financiero y administrativo
8. Conclusiones
I had had no real difficu lty in distilling the pervasive, and what I hope will
prove salient and interesting, features of the character of content of the
other subject managers' work. The same was not true in this case. I sat
staring at the com puter screen fo r many hours thinking 'there's nothing to
write about here'. Then, of course, it struck me; it was 'the nothing' th a t
deserved some attention.
It was not th a t there was 'no thing ', it was ju s t tha t the character of the
content was ju s t so strikingly different to anything I had experienced at
first or, as in this study, at second hand. Hence it is on the origins of this
distinctiveness th a t I will briefly elaborate.
No Significant Co-Com m itm ent & No Personal Risk
Although stock m arket falls had put a dent in my investm ent income, it
was only of personal concern to the extent th a t it constrained the number
of skiing holidays I could take. The income from GiftCo was welcome, but
not essential. From the beginning I had insisted that th a t GiftCo paid me
on a daily basis and with no contractual com m itm ent. I did not want them
to feel trapped with me, or vice versa. The rule was 'th a t i f you're n o t
happy, o r feel you cannot afford it anymore, then ju s t tell me no t to come in tom orrow. I will n o t be offended, indeed I m igh t be relieved'.
F IG U R E 3 P O R T F O L IO OF E N D E A V O U R - L E N N E Y @ G IF T C O - M A R K E T IN G DI R E C TO R in u. - 5 xi 0> Q_ 9- f o
I always went to work knowing it could end th a t day, but did not care. I
saw m yself merely as casual intellectual labour. I was simply a hired
hand, who was w ithout the usual cares of sustenance and career or a
contract of em ployment.
Not once did it ever cross my mind, not to speak my mind, no m a tter who
the audience.
No Careers to Worry About
The scale of the GiftCo operation ensured th a t there was very little
opportunity for significant career progression. There was therefore no
perceptible jostling for promotion among the supervisory team and the
usually associated politicking. Clearly, even if there had been, it would
hardly have affected me personally.
A Singular Simple Objective & No Shareholders
If you discount the V.A.T. man and the Inland Revenue there was no one
to please other than the M.D., who was also the m ajority shareholder. She
had worked for her father in the business, both before and since leaving
school. She wanted the firm to survive. She could have cut and run but it
appeared she saw it as her duty to preserve his legacy, not least for the
Her simple objective was merely to achieve a return-on-assets th a t came
close to th a t achievable from a low risk investm ent account, and to draw a
very modest personal salary. There was, as a result, neither the
complexity of stakeholder perspectives or demands, nor the plethora of
conflicting targets, to which I had become accustomed.
Certainly there was no global or regional management to worry about.
No Long Run & Goal Congruence
There was no delicate balancing act to perform in the reconciliation of
short and long run business goals. I f GiftCo did not break even within 18
months they were almost certainly out of business. The cash surplus from
disposals would have run dry.
Other than for the I.T. person, and the accountant, there were few other
desirable opportunities for em ployment in the immediate area. They were
'all in it together', and they knew it.
Small was Beautifully Simple - When it came to Change
One Wednesday morning I attended a session of the small cross
functional team I had set up to examine supply chain efficiency, and
rapidly pursue what we had identified as vital improvements in customer
lead-times. Within a couple of hours we had sketched out how we felt we
system. I t required significant organizational change, re-allocation of
responsibilities, substantial change in procedures, and the demise of an
entire departm ent. By Friday the change had been executed. Over the
weekend the various necessary physical moves took place and on the
Monday when I came in again it was all systems go. This did not quite
match my previous experience of operational change programmes. I t was
a pleasurable experience. One that was repeated innumerable times in my
short tim e at GiftCo; Schumacher was right, small is beautiful [1974].
5 .2 .3 Alan @ GovW are
The division of SystemServ, in which Alan worked [GovWare], itself a
m ulti-billion dollar operation, serves Europe, Middle East and Africa
[E.M.E.A]. GovWare is involved in the sale, development and deploym ent
of bespoke software systems for public and private organizations. Alan's
customer portfolio comprised Government and Government Agencies.
Other parallel 'custom er verticals' included, for instance, financial services
and manufacturing. At the time of the study the E.M.E.A. structure
consisted of a confederation of national profit centres. Each of these
national entities served all the 'custom er verticals', and were coordinated
and serviced by a functionally organised regional headquarters team,
within which sector specific business development groups, including
Alan's, resided. A chart locating Alan in the SystemServ organization
It would appear th a t SystemServ had been resting on its laurels for some
tim e:
"..w ith no serious com petitive threat,...[and]... infrastructure business keeping sales and license revenues m oving"
[In tervie w -0 (0 2 /0 6 /0 2 ): Field-note/no recording]
At the tim e of the study, however, things were changing; and it was a
fraught tim e in SystemServ, particularly within GovWare. A serious
com petitive technology [RivalSoft] had evolved, and the ir main com petitor
[CompetA] was aggressively exploiting it. This emerging technology
offered a real alternative to customers of GovWare.
5 .2 .3 .1 Alan - A Regional M arketing M anager
Alan, when I first met him, and when the study concluded, was form ally
responsible for, as he put it:
"m arketing...that's m arketing com m unications...m arket research, projects and program m es th a t support the sales activity...a road-show o r an event,...the branding, all those supporting things,...that's really what I d o " [Alan - Interview 13 Part 1: 51.40]
Alan had only one subordinate - a shared secretary. All the promotional
'legwork', as he termed it, was done for him by contract agencies of one
My conversations with Alan started on the eve of his annual performance
appraisal. The meeting was not going to be easy. This was not because of
poor performance, but because he was going to reject the career path
that was being anticipated for him:
"..the proposition is.. I 'll end up [th e ] m anager ....think I would be an
average m anager and want to reach m y potential as a m arketer. see
m yself as a creator no t a harveste r."
[Interview -0 (0 2 /0 6 /0 2 ): Field-note - no recording]
As we shall see, these perceptions of management and marketing provide
an interesting backdrop to the characterisation of his endeavours.
5 .2 .3 .2 Alan's Portfolio of Endeavours
Many threads of endeavour were clearly identifiable within Alan's
activities. The portfolio of endeavours constructed for Alan is shown in
Figure 5.
=; 00 - ^ > 0 g S % * < h </) ’ZZ 0 1 * 0 C U J (J
p l i i s l
1 | 3 C/5 1 - ^ < o> CO CM p>oog
£ CN <D O a; UJ x Q — -r i/f Z ' C5 <£ i= H o § a <; 2 * I s-! 8 1 ° «P O R T F O L IO OF E N DE AV O U R: - A LA N @ GO V WA R E
5 .2 .3 .3 A lan's Endeavours - The C haracter of th e ir C ontent
Dealing with a Complex 'Product' & Channels
One of SystemServ's core businesses is the supply of platform -software
developments. The industry comprises a complex m ulti-dimensional
network of numerous different types of vendors, many of which have
several different modes of operation. Bespoke-system project sales,
development and im plem entation are done in collaboration with other
software engineering firm s, systems integrators, hardware companies,
and management consultants; all the preceding possessing
complementary and necessary capabilities. Projects are sold and delivered
to customers through transient collaborative groupings of these various
network members. A typical example of such a transient grouping is
shown in Figure 6.
GovWare's success depends wholly on the successful mobilisation of such
groupings around project tenders th a t are based on GovWare's platform
developments, and which:
"... develop and deploy ..solutions everything we do....is all around
making this happen "
[Alan - Interview 3 Part 1: 19.05]
In essence, Alan's prim ary objective was the development of a core
effective mobilisation of transient groupings around those projects that
were targeted. As a key component of this pursuit he was endeavouring to
develop:
" a portfolio o f partners through which we can build and deliver a set o f
solutions and services which populate all areas o f our governm ent solutions m ap,..across the geographies within E.M.E.A....developing relationships with partners who we d o n 't currently work with ..m igrate partners over from com petitors....expand partnerships beyond national
boundaries" [Alan - Interview 9: 00.31]
G o v W a re - A T y p ic a l T ra n s ie n t P ro je c t S a les , D e v e lo p m e n t & S y s te m s Im p le m e n ta tio n G ro upin g
GovWare Compaq